Cruising into 2007: what to expect

By Anita Dunham-Potter

Travel columnist

updated 5:30 p.m. ET Dec. 18, 2006

Anita Dunham-Potter Travel columnist • Profile • E-mail

At this time of year, just about everyone devotes a column to predictions for the year ahead. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can tell you the shape of things to come on the high seas in 2007: more taxes, more tonnage, more talking and — would you believe? — bowling and water balloons.

Ships, Class of 2007
Eight new ships (and two older ships relaunched with new cruise lines) will be ready for their closeups next year. Here’s a summary for the Class of 2007, in order of the month they debut.

• January. Officially launched in late December 2006, the 93,500-ton Norwegian Pearl will carry 2,400 passengers and sail year-round from Miami on Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries.
• March. The 110,000-ton Carnival Freedom will carry 2,974 passengers and sail in the Mediterranean until November, when it transitions to Miami for its winter Caribbean season.
• April. Princess Cruises’ 30,000-ton, 680-passenger Royal Princess (formerly the R8 for the now-defunct Renaissance Cruises line and, more recently, the Minerva II for Swan Hellenic cruise line) will sail in the Mediterranean for the summer and then transition to Fort Lauderdale to sail Southern Caribbean and Amazon cruises for the winter.
• May. Royal Caribbean’s 160,000-ton Liberty of the Seas will carry 3,600 passengers and sail year-round from Miami in the Caribbean. This ship is the sister vessel to the Freedom of the Seas; together they tie for bragging rights as the world’s largest cruise ships.
• May. Celebrity Cruises’ 30,000-ton, 680-passenger Celebrity Journey (formerly the R6 for the now-defunct Renaissance Cruises line and, more recently, the Blue Dream for Spanish cruise line Pullmantur) will sail Bermuda cruises from Cape Liberty in New Jersey.
• May. Princess Cruises’ 116,000-ton Emerald Princess will carry 3,100 passengers. The ship will sail in Europe until November, when it repositions to Fort Lauderdale for its winter Caribbean season.
• May. Costa Cruises’ 112,000-ton Costa Serena will carry 3,000 passengers and sail year-round in the Mediterranean.
• October. Norwegian Cruise Line will debut the 92,000-ton Norwegian Gem. The ship will carry 2,384 passengers and sail year-round from New York to the Caribbean and the Bahamas.
• December. Cunard will debut the 90,000-ton Queen Victoria at the end of the year. A little more than half the size of the Queen Mary 2, the ship will carry 2,000 passengers. The first two voyages will be round-trips from Southampton, and then the new Queen will set sail on its world cruise.

Alaska cruise tax
Alaska voters passed the Ballot 2 initiative in August, and now that it is law, cruisers and cruise lines will have to pony up more money to visit the state. Every cruise passenger will pay an additional $50 in taxes and fees, but it’s the other taxes and fees (levied directly on the cruise lines) that you need to keep an eye on.

Carnival Corporation estimates that the new taxes and program fees will impact its 2007 earnings by three cents per share, or a total of approximately $24.15 million. The Carnival brands that sail Alaska itineraries are Carnival, Holland America and Princess; those cruise lines account for 560,000 of the almost one million Alaska cruise passengers. For Carnival Corporation lines, the new taxes and fees average out to around $43 per person on Alaska sailings; the figure will almost certainly be higher for the other cruise lines that sail there.

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Will the cruise lines pass the cost on to the consumer by jacking up ticket prices, or will they absorb it, or will they cut back the number of cruises for the 2008 season? Those are the questions. Alaska voters certainly voted for change, but they may be surprised by the amount of change they’ve unleashed.

E-tickets @ sea
Finally! A cruise line is following the lead of the airlines, and that’s good news for trees. Princess Cruises is converting to all-electronic ticketing for cruise and air bookings, becoming the first cruise line to do so. Princess says going to e-ticketing will enable it to provide cruise documents to its passengers earlier than any other line in the industry; they will also offer passengers 24-hour access to their cruise information through its online “Cruise Personalizer.”

The program will replace the second of two mailings that cruise passengers receive prior to their sailing (passengers will still receive the first mailing, which encloses the cruise contract, information on shore excursions and FAQs). Princess says the program is also expected to save travel agents time and money, as they will no longer need to forward final ticket packages on to clients. The transition to the Princess eTickets program began November 17 and will roll out across the fleet before the end of 2006. Given the cost savings, you can bet more cruise lines will follow Princess’s lead.

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